Couple’s Decision-Making Power, Women’s Labour Market Outcomes, and Asset Ownership

This paper explores the causal link between couple’s household decision-making power and women’s labour market and economic outcomes. Autonomy refers to the condition of independence while decision-making power can be defined as one’s ability to make important decisions within the household. Autonomy and decision-making power are used interchangeably in this paper. Using the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and a series of probit, instrumental probit and multinomial logistic regression models, findings suggest that women who have lower autonomy in their households are less likely to be currently employed and even when they are employed, these women have higher odds of working in family businesses, which are typically associated with greater labour market vulnerability. These women are, however, more likely to own assets, a strategy likely aimed at improving their exit options. Interestingly, when men have relatively more power within the household, there are positive implications for women’s labour market outcomes—women are more likely to be currently employed and less likely to be unpaid workers in family businesses. An explanation for this may be found in the country’s high poverty levels and general economic hardships which necessitates the influx of additional resources into the household through women’s paid employment. Greater absolute and relative autonomy of male partners, however, reduce women’s asset ownership, likely because greater resource accumulation by women, beyond wage receipts, can be an indicator of dominance within the household, a position typically ascribed to men by cultural and patriarchal norms. These results suggest that relative perceptions of authority and autonomy in the household are important determinants of Nigerian women’s labour market behaviours and asset ownership, and the influences of male partners cannot, and should not, be underestimated.